Conservative radio hosts are beginning to fear that President Obama is now so out of his depth that he has had to outsource his foreign policy decision-making to, of all things, a gaggle of women.

Rush Limbaugh

Rush Limbaugh

Rush Limbaugh is not surprised by the charge that has been made in certain circles that women (or "nags", "broads" or "feminazis", if you prefer) are running the show – at least, when it comes to deciding whether or not the US should intervene in Libya as "someone has to wear the pants suit in the White House" (listen to clip; read transcript).

Yet, we now see that the three people who talked Obama into using force against Libya's Muammar Gaddafi were all women – Hillary Clinton, Susan Rice and Samantha Power. Leading male advisers were opposed. We're talking about male liberals, of course they were opposed! It's the New Castrati. Of course, the males were opposed: they're sissies. And here's the No 1, well, the leader of the club. He happens to sit in the Oval Office.

Limbaugh is referring to a blogpost written by CNN senior political analyst David Gergen, who made that rather odd claim that Obama was talked into using force against Gadaffi by the three aforementioned women; Rice, Power and Clinton. As secretary of state, Clinton could only be expected to have had some input into the decision on how to handle the Libyan crisis; the same can be said of Rice and Power in their respective roles. But as the senior editor of the Atlantic, Garance Franke-Ruta, points out, it is more than a little absurd to suggest that senior female aides offering advice and analysis to the president (that is, doing the job they are being paid to do) equates to the president being "nagged" or "henpecked" into taking action that he otherwise would not have taken.

Limbaugh, however, takes the view however that the ladies had no choice but to call the shots because "only the women of Obamaland have any gonads" and that this should be something for women to be happy about.

What's so wrong about the nags advising Obama or making the decisions on Libya? I mean, the author of the story in the Atlantic who is all bummed out about it is a woman! Why? Shouldn't the Now gang [National Organisation for Women] and the nags be celebrating this latest accomplishment?

Meanwhile, as Limbaugh sees it, Obama is off in Rio "dancing a jig" or whatever it is they do in Rio, and multitasking by allowing himself be interrupted for updates on Libya at the state dinner (proving that he can chew food and think), so of course, the women have had to step in and do his job for him. But what he finds most amusing is that he believes women, or at least leftist women, are less upset about the alleged power grab, than about the dilemma the emasculation of the president poses for them.

Obama is being the perfect metrosexual as president, but I maintain there's a terrific conflict on the left over all this and that's why half of them, you know, are probably celebrating the fact that three women are actually responsible for the Libyan policy. On the other hand, they realise how it makes Obama look. Because he's the guy at the top of the ticket who gets the votes. I mean, he's guy that determines whether the women are in power or not and have any power to exercise.

Whatever the case may be, perhaps one can attribute Limbaugh's apparent reversal on the need to bomb Libya with his dissatisfaction regarding who made the decision to do so.

Laura Ingraham

Laura Ingraham

Ingraham also feels that Obama is unduly influenced by women, but in her case, the culprits are his wife, daughters and mother-in-law, who she believes are dictating if not his foreign policy decisions, at least the location in which he chooses to make them. She cites the recent trip to South America as an example and feels sure that Obama took some heat from the first lady for deciding to cut this trip short (listen to clip).

Who believes out there that steam is coming out of Michelle's ears today that she had to cut that vacation short? – [imitating Michelle Obama] – "Look, buddy, next time get this whole military thing done before we go, all right. I need to hit the bazaars. I need to invigorate the local economies a bit in Ecuador, in El Salvador, in Chile, in Brazil."

One would think that Ingraham would be pleased that the South America trip was cut short, as she didn't seem to think there was any legitimate reason for the trip other than to provide the Obama family with a vacation.

So when it's spring break and the girls and Michelle want to kick up their heels, then there's got to be an official reason to go to Brazil.

Instead, she was annoyed that the president bought his mother-in-law along for the ride, although conceded that they probably needed her to babysit while Michelle went shopping. But if she concerned herself less with the Obamas' childcare arrangements and read up a little more about Brazil in particular, which in just over a decade has become the world's seventh largest economy, has the tenth largest oil stores, one fifth of the world's fresh water and holds $160bn in US bonds, she might have felt that there was more to the trip than just the Obamas exploiting the office of the presidency to improve the quality of their family vacations.

This all exists, this entire White House position for the president exists, to do one thing – amplify his celebrity. And now we're supposed to think, "Oh, what a sacrifice" – it is Lent, by the way – so the sacrifice: the president has cut short his trip. And what did Samantha Guthrie say – two hours? Cut short his trip? He might as well have cut it short by a week!

What's confusing is that as little as Ingraham wants Obama to leave the country, she is even less keen to have him come home.

Michael Savage

Michael Savage

Like Ingraham, Michael Savage believes that President Obama merely took office so that he could have better family vacations. Still, Savage fears that what the president has done and continues to do to this country is so egregious that he finds himself in the horrible predicament of agreeing with some of "the most whackjob lefties" he would despise under normal circumstances (listen to clip).

So, the accidental president, president of the new world order on vacation with his family in South America, enjoying the ice cream and the other cholesterol-laden foods that cannot be shown at the White House, goes to war and sets off fierce debate in America where, strangely enough, both far right and far left come together and say "foul ball".

The "whack job lefties" with whom Savage is embarrassed to find himself in agreement are certain Californian liberals who are opposed to any US military intervention in Libya, which Savage has also come to oppose – apparently, on the grounds that it is mostly about oil and he thinks that, considering that we have plenty of oil reserves of our own in America if only we would drill for them (as in the Gulf Coast, where the recent catastrophic oil spill occurred causing an environmental as well as economic disaster for the region), we wouldn't have to go invading other countries to take their oil. But Savage has his suspicions why President Obama has chosen the latter course over the former.

Ask yourself why Obama is not drilling in these places. Ask yourself why he's closed the drilling in the Gulf. The answer is because he works for the Seven Sisters oil companies. That's what it's all about. They put this stooge in power! They are the ones behind the war [in Libya]. The man needs to be put out of office. He's impeachable! He's violated the constitution, if not on the basis of this illegitimate illegal war, then on the basis of naked incompetence!!

I hope the president isn't listening to any of this. If he is, he will surely need to take an actual vacation.